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Ragionamenti #2.I
Το σχολείο της πορνείας
Η Νάνα, φημισμένη εταίρα της Ρώμης του 1500, αναλαμβάνει να διδάξει τα μυστικά της τέχνης της στην κόρη της, την Πίπα. Έτσι, μαθαίνουμε πώς πρέπει να τρώει και να μιλάει μια αξιοπρεπής πόρνη, πώς να φέρεται στον εραστή της και στους φίλους του και τι κόλπα να κάνει στο κρεβάτι. Μια παρωδία πλατωνικού διαλόγου γραμμένη από την απολαυστική πένα του Αρετίνο, ενός συγγραφέα που έτρεμαν οι ισχυροί της εποχής, φτάνοντας στο σημείο να τον "εξαγοράζουν" με δώρα για να μην ασχοληθεί μαζί τους στα έργα του.
110 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1536
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525 people want to read
About the author
Pietro Aretino
242 books34 followersPietro Aretino was an Italian author, playwright, poet and satirist who wielded immense influence on contemporary art and politics and invented modern literate pornography.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
August 5, 2021
“In her pussy she has rubies.”
Στόχος είναι τα λεφτάάάά, έτσι μου 'πε η μαμάάάά...
Shock value porno... a true masterpiece.
For a weird reason I enjoyed it. Obviously it's not shocking anymore. It’s 2019. We have eroticas and weird porn. Yeah ok I’ve seen tentacle porn and scat porn meaning that at this point I’m dead inside but you have to be an extreme prude to get shocked. Omg sex is so shocking.
I don't like reading about people fucking. So logically I bought a book called The School Of Whoredom.
A mom is teaching her daughter Pippa how to be an excellent hooker. I mean with that name she was destined to become a prostitute. (Πίπα)Pippa in Greek means tobacco pipe or blowjob. You are welcome.
People say that this is mocking-satirizing Plato's dialogue. I can see what they are talking about. I had to read Plato for class. Omfg she is so cultured.
“Talk as little as you can”
Well that's it. I can never be a whore.
I just realized that since I came back from my vacation I’ve been handing out 4 star reviews.
Shock value porno... a true masterpiece.
For a weird reason I enjoyed it. Obviously it's not shocking anymore. It’s 2019. We have eroticas and weird porn. Yeah ok I’ve seen tentacle porn and scat porn meaning that at this point I’m dead inside but you have to be an extreme prude to get shocked. Omg sex is so shocking.
I don't like reading about people fucking. So logically I bought a book called The School Of Whoredom.
A mom is teaching her daughter Pippa how to be an excellent hooker. I mean with that name she was destined to become a prostitute. (Πίπα)Pippa in Greek means tobacco pipe or blowjob. You are welcome.
People say that this is mocking-satirizing Plato's dialogue. I can see what they are talking about. I had to read Plato for class. Omfg she is so cultured.
“Talk as little as you can”
Well that's it. I can never be a whore.
I just realized that since I came back from my vacation I’ve been handing out 4 star reviews.
Want to read
March 18, 2016What the hell, guys? I've been around for 41 years and no one told me about whatever this is? I expect better from all of you.
August 31, 2018
16th century manual for the professional courtesan, certainly satirical in part, presented as a dialogue between an experienced mentor and her protégé, targeting the ancient Socratic dialogue; Plato implicitly authorizes the satire by suggesting that rhetoricians are mercenary and then presenting inadvertently his preferred interlocutors as indistinguishable from his villains when it comes to the alleged defects of rhetoric (cf. the Gorgias, the Protagoras, and any locus wherein Socrates makes dumb arguments).
The problem, as identified by the mentor, is that “there are so many whores out there that those who don’t work miracles for a living won’t make ends meet” (3). The student accordingly demands that she “hurry up and make me a lady” (id.), a sort of burlesqued Pygmalion/Galatea—and she is promised “I see you ascending to heaven” (4). Contrary to this promise, the student is informed nevertheless that “it would be a bed of roses if it weren’t for that infamous infamy [!] whose stench reaches down into the abyss and up into Heaven itself [NB]; we are pushed and shoved in every way, by day and by night; and any whore who doesn’t consent to every obscene act imaginable will die of hunger” (39). Indeed, the text advises strongly against the intention to “become a whore to satisfy her lust and not her hunger” (60).
The pair recognizes some urgency for the education insofar as “they use eleven- and twelve-year-olds all over the world” (4), older than this construed as “pretty worthless.” The student is actually 20, though her mentor puts her out as 16, even though she looks merely 14 (id.)—yeah, I’m wtfing, too.
A certain cynicism appears, as in Clerks, regarding the clientele: “people who squander money, reputation, in fact their very lives, running after whores, are always moaning about the empty-headedness of one or another of them, as if the whore’s stupidity was the thing that’s ruining them” (4). This is intentional, of course:
Actual love and passion and whatnot, as sausurrean referents, are not required; rather, “sighing and blushing together are a sign of love – they betray the first stirrings of passion” (7), a theatre of emotion to be read in a semiotics of face, a science of corporeal signification, by the credulous clientele. The theatre is universal, applicable to all conduct, such as at dinner, “don’t raise your voice, gaping like a whore and letting them see what’s in your mouth” (8). By contrast, “talk as little as you can” (9). Audible eructation is to be avoided (id.), no doubt, a simulation of etiquette. Bakhtin’s classical body is to be presented, an idealist’s theatre against grotesque realism, so that one must “take more care than with fire not to be seen or heard peeing or easing your bowels, or even carrying a handkerchief” (10). In all things “you appear well mannered” (id.). The student complains that “You warn me to be decent, then you teach me shameless indecency” (14), which contradiction is dialectically synthesized as “I want you to be as much a whore in bed as you are a lady elsewhere” (id.), all part of the theatre: “make a show of loving him, bowing to every word he utters” (20). The ultimate theatre: “I’ll teach you how you can fake virginity” (75).
There’s no need to feel bad about the ongoing mendacity, insofar as “men want to be duped” (27)—“the cornerstone of a whore’s art is knowing how to feed gammon to the gullible” (id.). The question becomes whether this is similar to the audience for professional wrestling, as presented in Barthes’ Mythologies, wherein everyone is in on the deception, which nullifies it ab initio, or if there is a genuine desire to be deceived, to fall in for the simulation. Relevant, then, that the goal of the successful courtesan is inducing the opposite of ataraxia, a derridean solicitation: “the man will have no peace of mind left” (32). The object here: “he’ll become your slave” (69), metaphorically.
There’s a bizarre moment when the teacher is cautioning the student about how a client may want to take her roughly from behind (perhaps anal intercourse is meant?) and that she must instead insist upon “the front,” “the right way” (11): “What if he forces me? No one gets forced, silly girl” (id.). I’m not sure what to make of that, because, in context, the teacher implores the student to use the moment of being taken roughly from behind as an opportunity to “feel around to see if he has a bracelet on his arm or rings on his fingers” and thereby effect a clandestine asportation with intention to permanently deprive thereby (id.). If the client promises extravagant gifts, “don’t leave their side until the gift is ordered,” at which point “let him do it forwards, backwards, sideways” (19).
The goal either way, with a prefiguring of Taylorization in industry, is “the caresses that make these jousters come quickly” (id.). And it must be quick, because the clientele (Clerks, recall—the job would be great if it weren’t for the customers) are nasty; even so, “the sweet smell of money prevents the rotten stench of their breath and the foul smell of their feet from reaching your nose” (14).
As we see in Ray Chandler, there’s plenty of exorbitant metaphors here: “cunning whores are best compared to a haberdashery shop” and “in her pussy she has rubies” (12), all commercial NB. Phallic metaphors: “cucumber” (12), “key” (14), “earthworms folding into themselves and pushing out again” (17), “spit the slug” (18), and so on.
The mentor has advice on dealing with geriatric clients, with the aristocracy (“flattery and deceit are the darlings of great men” (26), as above), with simultaneous suitors, and with the differentials involved with various purported ethnicities (39 et seq.), which reminds one of the ethnology in Maurice’s Strategikon--perhaps there is an art of war here, considering the adversarial relation. Thus the text overall concerns the techne of client management, similar to the business sections of Kama Sutra, with relatively little attention to the ars amatoria. E.g., “be aware that if your favors are not equally distributed, the fellow who gets least will have his nose put out of joint”—“every punter deserves a go, and while the one who gives most should also receive most, you should be gracious about it” (70).
And we must recall that “the Good Lord God does not count the perjury of lovers, who can’t be held to account while they rave in the heat of passion” (37)—NB the accountancy metaphors. Some undecidability throughout between ‘courtesan’ and ‘whore,’ as though the latter is a term, only sometimes, for a role to be avoided.
Recommended for those who would cast Orlando in the shade, jackasses & peacocks, and readers who nevertheless feel happier holding a beautiful woman in their arms than the works of Dante himself.
The problem, as identified by the mentor, is that “there are so many whores out there that those who don’t work miracles for a living won’t make ends meet” (3). The student accordingly demands that she “hurry up and make me a lady” (id.), a sort of burlesqued Pygmalion/Galatea—and she is promised “I see you ascending to heaven” (4). Contrary to this promise, the student is informed nevertheless that “it would be a bed of roses if it weren’t for that infamous infamy [!] whose stench reaches down into the abyss and up into Heaven itself [NB]; we are pushed and shoved in every way, by day and by night; and any whore who doesn’t consent to every obscene act imaginable will die of hunger” (39). Indeed, the text advises strongly against the intention to “become a whore to satisfy her lust and not her hunger” (60).
The pair recognizes some urgency for the education insofar as “they use eleven- and twelve-year-olds all over the world” (4), older than this construed as “pretty worthless.” The student is actually 20, though her mentor puts her out as 16, even though she looks merely 14 (id.)—yeah, I’m wtfing, too.
A certain cynicism appears, as in Clerks, regarding the clientele: “people who squander money, reputation, in fact their very lives, running after whores, are always moaning about the empty-headedness of one or another of them, as if the whore’s stupidity was the thing that’s ruining them” (4). This is intentional, of course:
Listen carefully and fix my sermons and my gospels [!] in your head – they’ll make everything clear to you in two words: if a doctor, a philosopher, a merchant, a soldier, a monk, a priest, a hermit, a gentleman, a monsignor or a King Solomon is made to look a fool by the most hare-brained of whores, how do you think a courtesan with an ounce of common sense would deal with those simpletons? (5)Sex work is accordingly “no career for fools” (id.).
Actual love and passion and whatnot, as sausurrean referents, are not required; rather, “sighing and blushing together are a sign of love – they betray the first stirrings of passion” (7), a theatre of emotion to be read in a semiotics of face, a science of corporeal signification, by the credulous clientele. The theatre is universal, applicable to all conduct, such as at dinner, “don’t raise your voice, gaping like a whore and letting them see what’s in your mouth” (8). By contrast, “talk as little as you can” (9). Audible eructation is to be avoided (id.), no doubt, a simulation of etiquette. Bakhtin’s classical body is to be presented, an idealist’s theatre against grotesque realism, so that one must “take more care than with fire not to be seen or heard peeing or easing your bowels, or even carrying a handkerchief” (10). In all things “you appear well mannered” (id.). The student complains that “You warn me to be decent, then you teach me shameless indecency” (14), which contradiction is dialectically synthesized as “I want you to be as much a whore in bed as you are a lady elsewhere” (id.), all part of the theatre: “make a show of loving him, bowing to every word he utters” (20). The ultimate theatre: “I’ll teach you how you can fake virginity” (75).
There’s no need to feel bad about the ongoing mendacity, insofar as “men want to be duped” (27)—“the cornerstone of a whore’s art is knowing how to feed gammon to the gullible” (id.). The question becomes whether this is similar to the audience for professional wrestling, as presented in Barthes’ Mythologies, wherein everyone is in on the deception, which nullifies it ab initio, or if there is a genuine desire to be deceived, to fall in for the simulation. Relevant, then, that the goal of the successful courtesan is inducing the opposite of ataraxia, a derridean solicitation: “the man will have no peace of mind left” (32). The object here: “he’ll become your slave” (69), metaphorically.
There’s a bizarre moment when the teacher is cautioning the student about how a client may want to take her roughly from behind (perhaps anal intercourse is meant?) and that she must instead insist upon “the front,” “the right way” (11): “What if he forces me? No one gets forced, silly girl” (id.). I’m not sure what to make of that, because, in context, the teacher implores the student to use the moment of being taken roughly from behind as an opportunity to “feel around to see if he has a bracelet on his arm or rings on his fingers” and thereby effect a clandestine asportation with intention to permanently deprive thereby (id.). If the client promises extravagant gifts, “don’t leave their side until the gift is ordered,” at which point “let him do it forwards, backwards, sideways” (19).
The goal either way, with a prefiguring of Taylorization in industry, is “the caresses that make these jousters come quickly” (id.). And it must be quick, because the clientele (Clerks, recall—the job would be great if it weren’t for the customers) are nasty; even so, “the sweet smell of money prevents the rotten stench of their breath and the foul smell of their feet from reaching your nose” (14).
As we see in Ray Chandler, there’s plenty of exorbitant metaphors here: “cunning whores are best compared to a haberdashery shop” and “in her pussy she has rubies” (12), all commercial NB. Phallic metaphors: “cucumber” (12), “key” (14), “earthworms folding into themselves and pushing out again” (17), “spit the slug” (18), and so on.
The mentor has advice on dealing with geriatric clients, with the aristocracy (“flattery and deceit are the darlings of great men” (26), as above), with simultaneous suitors, and with the differentials involved with various purported ethnicities (39 et seq.), which reminds one of the ethnology in Maurice’s Strategikon--perhaps there is an art of war here, considering the adversarial relation. Thus the text overall concerns the techne of client management, similar to the business sections of Kama Sutra, with relatively little attention to the ars amatoria. E.g., “be aware that if your favors are not equally distributed, the fellow who gets least will have his nose put out of joint”—“every punter deserves a go, and while the one who gives most should also receive most, you should be gracious about it” (70).
And we must recall that “the Good Lord God does not count the perjury of lovers, who can’t be held to account while they rave in the heat of passion” (37)—NB the accountancy metaphors. Some undecidability throughout between ‘courtesan’ and ‘whore,’ as though the latter is a term, only sometimes, for a role to be avoided.
Recommended for those who would cast Orlando in the shade, jackasses & peacocks, and readers who nevertheless feel happier holding a beautiful woman in their arms than the works of Dante himself.
November 23, 2023
This book made me blush. Not the dirty talk: "... if his spike was the shaft and your little herb patch the wheel that revolves on it ..." What embarrassed me was that I'm no better than those 16th-century chumps. The porno stuff was mostly in the beginning of the lesson. Most of the book was Nanna telling funny stories about her whorish tricks of the utmost whorishness.
June 25, 2016
Pietro Aretino, more famous for his obscene sonnets accompanying the engravings of Raimondi which got him exiled from Rome in 1527, was a prolific writer. Also called, somewhat erroneously, the father of pornography (which didn't really exist as a separate category then) he wrote a series of Dialogues set over six days, of which this is one, the fourth day.
Here Nanna, a seasoned prostitute, reveals the secrets of the profession to her eager daughter Pippa. And, in doing so, exposes the morals, hypocrisies and habits of sixteenth century men, from traders to members of the Papal court.
This is a funny and bawdy read which doesn't hold back at all. Aretino deliberately satirises the classical dialogue form most usually associated with Plato, and also uses erotic discourse to expose and reveal power and corruption at the highest levels of society, following the satiric traditions of Juvenal, Martial and, arguably, Ovid.
This is the only cheap and easily-available edition of even part of Aretino but I can't help wondering why this part was selected out of context. The translation is very modern which I didn't really like so that Nanna, for example, uses highly-paid football players as an example, which destroyed the atmosphere for me.
For the rest of the Dialogues, including the first three days you'll probably have to borrow the text from the library: Aretino's Dialogues (Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library) and, personally, I far prefer Rosenthal's translation.
Here Nanna, a seasoned prostitute, reveals the secrets of the profession to her eager daughter Pippa. And, in doing so, exposes the morals, hypocrisies and habits of sixteenth century men, from traders to members of the Papal court.
This is a funny and bawdy read which doesn't hold back at all. Aretino deliberately satirises the classical dialogue form most usually associated with Plato, and also uses erotic discourse to expose and reveal power and corruption at the highest levels of society, following the satiric traditions of Juvenal, Martial and, arguably, Ovid.
This is the only cheap and easily-available edition of even part of Aretino but I can't help wondering why this part was selected out of context. The translation is very modern which I didn't really like so that Nanna, for example, uses highly-paid football players as an example, which destroyed the atmosphere for me.
For the rest of the Dialogues, including the first three days you'll probably have to borrow the text from the library: Aretino's Dialogues (Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library) and, personally, I far prefer Rosenthal's translation.
May 8, 2007
The first of Aretino's three books of Dialogues in which Nana, a whore, tries to help her daughter decide what to be--a nun, a whore, or a wife. This one deals with the life of the whore.
May 11, 2013
I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11902392
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11902392
April 4, 2010
if you haven't read Greek-derivative dialogues before that use the format for shock value, then you may like the first 40 pages of this.
or, again, if you are someone who thinks that sex is the invention of the 20th century? you may get a giggle and a new perception to know that people have been fucking for a long while in a lot of ways you have yet to try out... because you, probably, aren't willing to pay for it.
but for everyone else?
amateur shock value that is dated.
or, again, if you are someone who thinks that sex is the invention of the 20th century? you may get a giggle and a new perception to know that people have been fucking for a long while in a lot of ways you have yet to try out... because you, probably, aren't willing to pay for it.
but for everyone else?
amateur shock value that is dated.
January 14, 2010
very funny
November 1, 2022
This part was very little about sex and all about how to make good money as a courtesane. Which according to Nanna involves elaborate schemes, con artist stuff, and basically just stealing money and jewelry. But also choosing the right kind of clients.
I don't know if to read this book more as a satire or a historical relic, but Aretino was good with language. This was an entertaining read. Though I also enjoyed the aspects of describing national stereotypes and such, as I bet there are only a few such primary sources that go to those vulgar levels. It offers a nice little glimpse into the 16th century.
I don't know if to read this book more as a satire or a historical relic, but Aretino was good with language. This was an entertaining read. Though I also enjoyed the aspects of describing national stereotypes and such, as I bet there are only a few such primary sources that go to those vulgar levels. It offers a nice little glimpse into the 16th century.
January 13, 2018
A tongue-in-cheek classic by Pietro Aretino, a 16th-century Italian writer, poet, and satirist. This is one in a series of dialogues between women on how to be wise and cunning in order to survive and be "successful" in society. Staged as a tete-a-tete between a courtesan and her young daughter on the finer points of the oldest profession, Aretino exploited this absurd scenario to shock the audience with pornographic language and to poke fun at human nature and the behaviors of his contemporaries.
February 10, 2022
A fascinating analysis of the choices open to a woman in Italy in the 16/17th century. Sell your body into marriage and become the chattel of your husband, losing all your wealth and reputation to him in the process? Or perhaps sell your soul and wealth also to the church and become a nun?
Or formally become a courtesan, bedazzle men, retain your wealth, independence, wit and charm?
Or formally become a courtesan, bedazzle men, retain your wealth, independence, wit and charm?
Read
November 13, 2019A fun little book with some advice modern women can use.
October 7, 2025
This book is a dialogue between Nanna and Pippa. Where Nanna, an experienced whore, tells aspiring whore Pippa, her virgin daughter, the tricks of the trade of whoredom.
It’s a witty story filled with humour, metaphors and ‘wisdom’. Nanna recounts the types of men and how to swindle them of their money, how to behave and how to not be the ‘common whore’.
I can almost imagine myself and my girlfriends speaking of men this way (definitely NOT with my mother!)
When girls get together with a glass of wine and chat about types of men, who to stay away from and how to flirt, it’s not too different from how Nanna warns Pippa of merchants, officers and the nobility. I guess women in the 16th century aren’t all that different from us.
It’s a witty story filled with humour, metaphors and ‘wisdom’. Nanna recounts the types of men and how to swindle them of their money, how to behave and how to not be the ‘common whore’.
I can almost imagine myself and my girlfriends speaking of men this way (definitely NOT with my mother!)
When girls get together with a glass of wine and chat about types of men, who to stay away from and how to flirt, it’s not too different from how Nanna warns Pippa of merchants, officers and the nobility. I guess women in the 16th century aren’t all that different from us.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews